Don't under-estimate the importance of education

Decision on education paves the route to different destinies.

How we decide for our children’s education is of utmost importance to their future. We are familiar with the proverb, ‘the hand that rocks the cradle, rocks the world’. Coming close in importance is the education a child gets during his/her growing years.

In each family, either the father or mother is expected to decide on children’s future education. My father's decision was ‘boys to study English, while girls are to study Chinese’ which led to differences of opinions and tastes in many things.

In the old days, most houses had a Redifusion set which costed a few ringgit rental a month. Each rented set (looked like a speaker), was connected by wire (found all over the Klang Valley) with programmes transmitted from their Jalan Pahang station (opposite KL General Hospital), with a dial for choosing English or Chinese stations. I still remember how my third brother and third sister used to argue and change the station ever so often. Since it was left on all the time, the first sound of the service early at 6 am worked as our alarm clock for waking up to get ready for school.

Ideally, the national education should include a system of high standard of education with a choice to opt for different languages. But being Malaysia, we have our peculiar problems compounded by narrow-minded politicians with self-interests.

The following letter was in response to Mukhriz’s suggestion for a uniform education system, which was met with all kinds of accusations:

http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/94572

Vernacular schools unfairly targetted
SK Wong Dec 9, 08 4:53pm

"Here we go again", I thought to myself as yet another aspiring Umno Youth leader used the non-Malays as the bogeymen to portray himself as the champion of Malay rights.

I am of course referring to Murkriz Mahathir's recent statement that all vernacular schools should be shut down in favour of national schools. The rationale? It's the old beaten-to-death line of reasoning: vernacular schools cause disunity.

Because non-Malay school children tend to attend vernacular schools, while the Malays attend national schools, the segregation limits interaction between different races which in turn leads to disunity. It is simple, linear and logical reasoning. But does it reflect reality?

First of all, as the saying goes, it takes two hands to clap. Why must the vernacular schools shoulder the sole responsibility of sowing the seed of disunity while national schools are let off the hook?

Take Mara for example, an institution created exclusively for the Malays. A recent suggestion by the Selangor chief minister to open its door to non-Malays was met with howls of protests. Why is it not accused of creating disunity?

Why are no fingers pointed at religious schools? Exactly what kind of unity are we talking about? Is "unity" being bandied about as a euphemism for subtle forced assimilation? Can the people take politicians seriously when they talk about unity while being oblivious to such a blatant violator of the cause? Why the double-standard?

By comparison, none of the vernacular schools are created exclusively for a single race. Although they conduct classes in Mandarin and Tamil (except for the subjects of Malay, English, and yes, Science and Mathematics), anyone is welcomed to learn them.

No one is barred from enrolling based on race. So is it a case of pot calling the kettle black? Or rather the pot calling the silver-ware black? If vernacular schools are guilty of creating disunity, then all types of schools are not above the fray. There is plenty of blame to go around. But are schools really the source of our disunity?

Our schools, be they national or vernacular, did not intentionally set out to polarise their student intake (except for Mara). The racial polarisation in our schools is a natural consequence of the collective decisions made by the children's parents which is a reaction to the various hare-brain educational policies hatched up by some people sitting in an air-conditioned office and the overly-zealous local educational administrators/principals.

It is an open secret that our national schools are becoming increasingly religious in overtones. The falling standards, lackadaisical attitude of some teachers and the not so well-disguised contempt for non-Malay students are putting off many non-Malay parents.

On the other hand, many Malay parents still put their trust in the government. In short, polarisation in schools is a manifestation, rather than the cause of disunity. In fact, forcing students into the same school system without addressing the root cause of the problem may even aggravate resentment and result in greater disunity.
The different types of schools is actually minimising the explosive friction created by the disunity rather than a cause of it. Forcing all students to attend the same school system is like forcing all commuters to drive Proton cars.

To be fair to Murkriz, as a concession, he did say that all students must learn their own mother tongue in national schools. But the lack of opportunity to learn one’s mother tongue is not the only reason why so many non-Malay parents abandon national schools, it is not even the main reason.

Unless the falling education standard along with rising religiosity is arrested and reversed, non-Malays will continue to flock to vernacular schools.
The choice of school like buying a car, is a practical matter not a patriotic one. Whoever produces a better product gets the parents' endorsement. The most recent statistics I can dig up came from a report written by Chok Suat Ling in New Straits Times on Feb 17 2002. According to the report, 90 percent of non-Malays go to vernacular schools and 90 percent of Malays go to national schools.

That means that about 10 percent of Malays go to vernacular schools, while roughly 10 percent of non-Malays go to national schools. Since Malays account for more that 65 percent of the country's population, 10 percent of the Malay population is necessarily greater than 10 percent of the non-Malay population.

Therefore, there are more Malay students in vernacular schools than non-Malay students in national schools. In this sense, national schools and religious schools are more culpable of creating disunity.

It appears, vernacular schools are not quite the devils they are made out to be. Perhaps, we should close down national schools instead? If closing down national schools sounds sacrilegious, why then is closing down vernacular schools any less so?

Before casting their stones, Murkriz and his supporters should make sure they are not living in a glass house. The non-Malays do not like to be bullied any more than the Malays.

The non-Malays helped to build this country to what it is today. The tin mines did not mine themselves. The rubber trees did not tap themselves, Kuala Lumpur was not founded by itself. Non-Malays pay taxes and have won more than their fair share of medals in international sporting events.

The non-Malays fought alongside the Malays against the Japanese aggressor in World War II. After the war, they worked together to gain independence from the British. The non-Malays are an asset to the country, not the enemy. It is disheartening after shedding so much sweat, tears and blood for this country, that their allegiance is still being questioned.

The problem with Mukhriz’s suggestion was the typical, ‘what is ours is ours, what is yours is also ours’ which can hardly be fair and palatable to all the other races.